Drakken
Sparrow
Both the Roman and Jewish authorities tried to eliminate the early Christian Church so it would make no sense for them to create a subversive movement then try to keep it from spreading. If anything they would fan the flames.
European Paganism and their Modern Day LARPer's
- Thread starter infowarrior1
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That's the traditional view of the Church and the current view of the Orthodox Church.
There are elements of truth in various pagan religions and many cultures have been allowed to retain aspects of their pagan past which weren't harmful, like honoring nature, but you're not allowed to worship anything other than God.
Plus, if you actually approach the major pagan religions with the above in mind, the demonic aspects become pretty obvious, both on an exoteric and esoteric level.
For instance, any god that demands human sacrifice (ex. Norse, Central America, Native American, Greek, etc. paganism) is clearly demonic. And even the physical appearance of these gods, as they're depicted in pagan art, is very obviously demonic.
Giant, four-armed elephant deity carrying swords (Hinduism and traditional Buddhism). Is that an angel?
Then there's the behavior of these gods. Rape, murder, incest, etc. Some of the pagan religions differentiate between more righteous and more violent gods, but this entire pantheistic conception is itself anti-Christian, as is the dualistic idea of good and evil as a natural balance. In Orthodoxy, evil is not only unnatural, it doesn't even have ontological existence; it's simply a privation of the good. Even death is unnatural.
This applies to pagan metaphysics as a whole, including in religions like Buddhism. For example, Orthodox Christianity explicitly rejects the idea of the world as an illusion, as well as monism. The world is fallen, the physical world is inferior to the heavenly Kingdom, but the world we live in is still 100% real. And while we become one with God, in a sense, we never lose our distinctions.
To be clear, this doesn't mean that all pagans, past and present, consciously worshipped demons. But the religions themselves are demonic from the Christian perspective. How can something that is directly contradictory to the Christian worldview and does things explicitly forbidden by God not be demonic?
There's definitely a continuum. For instance, St. Nicholas of Japan described Japanese Buddhism as a higher form of paganism. On the other hand, you have pagans that were sacrificing their own children and living like complete degenerates. There are even degrees within these religions, like Zen vs. Theravada Buddhism or Sunni vs. Sufi Islam. But they are ultimately all on the same scale.
Timothy Crow
Robin
It is no surprise in the rise of paganism among European peoples, just look at the neutered, broken church. European men want to be men, they want to be strong, they have an inner desire that unfortunately is not being met by modern standards. Their lands are being overrun by historically racial and religious enemies, their women defiled, they are paying tribute and have no say, all are being treated as if they were a conquered nation. The old gods are real, whether you believe it or not it is true, be they demons or whatnot it does not take away from their reality.
What has happened? It is much too detailed to go into here but then, look into the Bible, it was predicted, a falling away. The church has much to do with this, not God mind you, the church, which was also predicted. Oh, so much has gone wrong but now is not the time for lament, Satan smells blood, the time is short and war is on the horizon.
Curiously, on another point, I have always thought that God used the Roman empire quite ingeniously. In order to facilitate the spread of Christianity would require a world empire, Rome. Christianity was spread among the European peoples, a roving, conquering, seeking of the unknown type of people. This in turn spread the Word all over the planet as was required. What comes next is also predicted but how fast that is still remains in the hands of men for now.
What has happened? It is much too detailed to go into here but then, look into the Bible, it was predicted, a falling away. The church has much to do with this, not God mind you, the church, which was also predicted. Oh, so much has gone wrong but now is not the time for lament, Satan smells blood, the time is short and war is on the horizon.
Curiously, on another point, I have always thought that God used the Roman empire quite ingeniously. In order to facilitate the spread of Christianity would require a world empire, Rome. Christianity was spread among the European peoples, a roving, conquering, seeking of the unknown type of people. This in turn spread the Word all over the planet as was required. What comes next is also predicted but how fast that is still remains in the hands of men for now.
I find a strange fear of symbols on the part of some Christians, as if all folklore has to be purged of symbolism if it's not an explicit depiction of Christian themes. Societies have various layers, and Christianity doesn't have to remove the layers below to stand up top. In fact, it can only stand atop healthy levels. You can't impose a Church on top of a people, you have to build it from the people. If the people are rotten, nothing can be used. If they are healthy, then the crown won't fall off. So of course there are 'levels' of different paganisms and we can rank them, but that is almost irrelevant today, and focusing on how this symbol was used by whoever for whatever, doesn't mean anything - precisely by the fact that European paganism has disappeared. Its come back is, by necessity, a new thing. We should understand it, why it's appearing, what is it offering that the Church isn't offering? There seem to be more and more 'blood and soil' type groups appearing. Is blood and soil incompatible with Christianity? Or is it a pre-requisite?
So while I agree with almost everything you wrote, I think the framing or the focus is rather unhelpful - and this applies to any complex topic. In the texts of the Early Church, including Paul's Letters, they seem to focus a lot on convincing people that not everyone has to be a monastic, because so many, including those not meant for it, wanted to follow a life a full contemplation and removal from the world. The Church then would argue extensively that not everyone was suited for monasticism, and that marriage and family were the path of sanctification for those who are not. In today's world however there is a much higher need to speak of monasticism and its importance because it has virtually disappeared - no matter how the family and marriage have degraded it still exists wholly and holy in many places. Monasticism on the other hand is gone. So the emphasis now should be on that rather than this. It's one example where a complex topic has to be tackled, not as a monolith, but as understood and with relation to the current society, with what is most needed right now. And I tell you, we need some lower layers, we need some common symbols which aren't part of some multinational franchise, which aren't trademarked and copyrighted, which are local. We need common stories without sponsored merchandise.
Why are so many people flocking to paganism? Clearly something is missing in the modern world, and many people feel that the Church has become part of that world - maybe even created it - and so reject it. Perhaps the fault lies in the Church and the Christians, who are not setting a good example, are not offering a true refuge from the awful modernity and instead have become entranced by it. The problem today is not how paganism is turning people away from the Christ, it's how Christians are doing it. If the pagan banner is leading people to detach from the world and adhering to tradition, if it's leading to the creation of local communities who help each other, if in the end it is a vehicle for people to love their neighbor and build something in accordance with the natural law, they may not call His name, and they may not know they are serving Him, but they are learning how. You can convert such a people to Christ. Can you do the same with nominally Christian zionists, churchianians, queer theologians and the rest of them, who try to fit Jesus into whatever insane fad the upside down world offers as new dogma?
So I find that telling pagans they are worshipping demons to be a bad strategy. St. Paul did not enter Athens telling them this. He saw a monument to an 'unknown' god, and told them he was coming to make Him known to them.
Many Demons used to sit in the Divine Council of God's Royal Court where consultation occurred and Judgments were made.
Even from the compromised source(in the feminist department) this is a good article on this phenomenon:
christianthinktank.com/victor.pdf
They along with Satan have used said position of power to rebel against God. But its only with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ does even Satan himself lose access to meeting with God as in the case in the Book of Job.
Since there is much variation in this. Sure in many cases I am sure they could be converted to Christ.
Although those "Blood and Soil" types at least the online types that I linked to. May be harder to converted to more modern Anti-Christian bias that results in associating Christianity with worshipping Jewish people for example and other forms of resistance.
Granted it would be easier to deal with them than the other examples which shows souls that are even more given over to the Kingdom of Darkness.
The relatively light persecutions of the Romans on Christians was a blessing compared to Islamic persecutions and other later historical developments. So I don't think there was an extensive massacre of Christians like as to what happened to the Huguenots later in history at St Barthemelew's Day.
As for the Jewish Authorities. I would agree. Although it would only make sense in the viewpoint that given Christianity was controlled opposition their unsuccessful attempts are deliberate. And vigorous elimination is for show. This was the impression when I digged a bit into the rabbit hole in what I linked to in OP.
Vox Day on Pagan LARPing
I wish I'd seen this years ago and saved myself some cringe and mental anguish.
I wish I'd seen this years ago and saved myself some cringe and mental anguish.
I don't think we fundamentally disagree, but there are some key things I want to push back on here.
First of all, I live in Vietnam. Before that, I was in Thailand for over a year. I literally pass Buddhist shrines, Buddhist monks, and statues to Hindu gods all the time when leaving my house.
Needless to say, I get along with pagans quite fine, and I don't go around calling them demon worshippers.
But the pagan gods are demons. I was specifically responding to your claim that this is a "puritanical" teaching -- it's not. It's the teaching of the Church for milennia. In fact, the Western Church used to be much stronger in its condemnation of these practices.
However, you're definitely right that the Church Fathers used paganism as a way to relate Christianity, and that Christianity does not have to completely destroy the underlying culture. And it hasn't. Orthodox countries like Russia and Greece still have strong connections to their pre-Christian culture and folklore.
Monasticism and symbolism are also alive and well in the Orthodox Church. The post-Soviet monasteries are not quite as full as they were during pre-Soviet times, but they're still there and there are still plenty of monks in them. And there have been dozens of monasteries opened in the US within the past 50 or so years.
I do agree that Western men need to rediscover these things, but I don't think they're something that is fundamentally "lacking" from Christianity.
Finally, moving onto the 'why' of paganism, I'm gonna break this up into a few key points, since I don't want to write an essay:
1. There are certainly some people who are drawn to it because of symbolism or tradition or nature. But there are also some "blood and soil" types who are simply degenerates who hate God. A large portion of the Viking's interaction with the Christian West involved sacrificing priests to pagan gods, desecrating religious sites, torturing defeated enemies for sport, dishonoring Christian holidays, and selling Christian prisoners into slavery. There are many people who are drawn to that tradition precisely because of these distinctly anti-Christian characteristics.
The Israelites were repeatedly drawn into complete degeneracy, even as God was personally leading them through the desert and feeding them manna from heaven. Moses went up a mountain to talk to God, and by the time he came down, they were worshiping an idol. In other words, some people are always going to be drawn into rebellion.
2. Paganism and occultism have been on the rise in the West for several hundred years. It was extremely prevalent during the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, in Victorian England, in Revolutionary France, and it's all over America, on our money, at our capital, etc. And if you look at the work of someone like Michael Hoffman, it started infecting the Catholic Church long ago.
Many Russian writers have also traced the downfall of Russia to the occult and pagan practices introduced during the reigns of Peter I and Catherine I. This is one of the controversies that created the Slavophile movement, the split with Old Believers, etc.
Then, of course, there is the occult ideology that under girds nearly all of modern society, from pop culture to science. So, in many ways, you could say that the modern West's current ills are a result of too much paganism, not too little.
3. I think you underestimate the danger and destructiveness of many of these ideas and practices. The reason that symbols, ritual, religious practices, etc. matter is because they have real power, beyond the material or even mental world. Not only are the Church Fathers clear about the nature of paganism, they are clear that engaging in pagan practices, even without knowing their meaning, is very harmful.
Even participating in rituals that we don't know are rituals is thought to have power in occult circles.
That doesn't mean we have to literally purge every single thing that could possibly be connected to paganism, but I think the idea of "oh, just go be pagan for a bit, and then come back to Christianity" is a little naive. As was pointed out in the recent thread on the Greek church banning yoga, even "secular" "exercises" like meditation and yoga can cause people serious issues in the long run.
4. In my opinion, one of the things that is most missing in the West is objective truth. So, again, you don't have to run around calling people demon worshippers, and you can give people truth in spoonfuls, but I'm not going to adulterate the truth because it is difficult for people to hear. I'm not saying that's what you're suggesting, but I think there's a difference between not calling every pagan you meet a demon worshipper and saying that the pagan gods aren't demons. The first is fine, but the second is fundamentally untrue.
I think of some pagan gods, such as Molech, Chemosh, Pan, Kali, and the Mayan and Aztec gods as aspects of Satan. Others like Thor and Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́ (the Vedic sky father) I think of as simply non-existent but inspiring fictional characters.
MovingForward2050
Pelican
Oh, and don't forget about these modern-day evil gods from pop culture... Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch, and Slaanesh...
Chaos Gods
The Chaos Gods, also called the Dark Gods or the Ruinous Powers, are powerful, self-aware entities comprised solely of psychic energy who inhabit and control the psychic dimension that underlies all physical reality known as the Immaterium or the "Warp." The Chaos Gods are in truth not really...
warhammer40k.fandom.com
They are remnants of the Ancestral religion of Adam. Which was still present in primitive tribes around the world:
The Sky Father deities are the least distorted notions of God the Father. Although there are varying degrees of distortion however it seems the more primitive Steppe Peoples preserve the original worship better than the settled Civilizations.
Hence Dyeus Pater the All-Father for the Indo-Europeans and Tengri the Father God of the Blue Sky is more indicative of their preservation of the Original Religion.
I wonder if this is the appeal of paganism for a lot of people today - both the young girls LARPing as witches and the dissident right people LARPing as vikings. There's barely any sort of doctrine in paganism which means a practitioner has a lot of freedom in determining what the "faith" means to him or her. A wicca girl and an alt-right Odinist guy are on the opposite ends of the political and social spectrum but because the doctrine in paganism is so loose that both these people can draw whatever they want out of it and end up in completely different spaces. This perfectly suits the modern mind that wants to be the absolute arbitrator of what is right and valid rather then depending on an external source to act as an arbitrator.
Emperor Constantine
Kingfisher
With the pagans I know, they worship gods who they like. Odin was wise and strong, someone who likes wisdom and strength worships Odin. Aphrodite liked sex, some nympho wicca chick decides to start worshipping Aprodite. The way someone smarter than me put it, the pagans make gods in their own image. Some, like Lady Fortuna, aren't even really gods so much as just a concept described as a person.
It's quite different from Christianity, where we don't necessarily like everything our God stands for. I, for one, have strong inclinations towards making up my own morals and don't really like the idea of turning the other cheek, giving up wealth, etc. But I believe in God, so I attempt to conform my will to his. Whereas the pagan can conform his god to his own will, or if there's enough tradition to prevent that he can just pick another god.
It's quite different from Christianity, where we don't necessarily like everything our God stands for. I, for one, have strong inclinations towards making up my own morals and don't really like the idea of turning the other cheek, giving up wealth, etc. But I believe in God, so I attempt to conform my will to his. Whereas the pagan can conform his god to his own will, or if there's enough tradition to prevent that he can just pick another god.
With a lot of the blood and soil pagans a lot of them explicitly deny believing that the gods exist. Varg is a prime example of this:
Varg Vikernes - A Bard's Tale: Part VIII - Religion or Reason
Burzum.org - Official Burzum and Varg Vikernes website: news, biography, discography, photos, library, downloads, contacts
burzum.org
It's another form of modern man's self-worship of themselves. Their gods are nothing more than idealized human beings or representatives of human qualities that are seen as divine. I don't see how this too much different than secular humanism at it's core. The main difference is that secular humanism, being liberal and internationalist makes abstract man into a god while the blood and soil pagans being nationalistic and ethnocentric make their race into a god. In both cases, man is the measure all things and the gods only get their value from how much they can elevate man. It's the complete inversion of Christianity where man has value because we are made in the image of God.
The video I linked points to this fact too. It seems the more Primitive Tribes and Steppe Peoples who are unable to have a sophisticated settled culture are the ones far more likely to Worship the All-Father Sky God who is Eternal in existence and who they also consider as without form and as Spirit.
As well as retaining the Garden of Eden Memory with the resulting fall of Man and of all creation. Alongside the Flood with the preservation of Noah and his seed.
Varg is an Atheist with retaining on the aesthetics of the Pagans. He doesn't actually believe in the supernatural at all.
MovingForward2050
Pelican
I had always meant to watch the documentary about him. Wow! The guy gets into all sorts of trouble, spends fifteen years in prison, and yet still finds himself a French woman to have six kids with! Lol
She is his groupie. So of course. He is a minor rockstar with rockstar fame and I bet the years in prison increased his badboy appeal.